System for routing electronic mail to best qualified person based on content analysis

ABSTRACT

A system for routing electronic mails to one of a plurality of support persons in a processing center is disclosed. Each person has a skill set that is suitable for responding to a certain type of e-mails. The system comprises an e-mail server for receiving the e-mail from a sender, an information extractor for extracting relevant information from the e-mail, and a router for routing the e-mail. The system contains a database for storing information related to all persons who can answer e-mails. The system also contains a server for storing the history of all activities in the system. The router can make routing decisions and perform load-balancing and alert functions based on the information stored in the database and the server.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to electronic mails, and more particularlyto a system for routing electronic mails to the best qualified personwho can answer the mail.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Electronic mail (e-mail) has recently become one of the most commonlyused communication tool in business. As more and more homes areconnected to the Internet, it could become an important communicationtool for homes also.

In the simplest case, electronic mail is the delivery of text-basedmessages from a sending computer to one or more recipient computers. Thesending and recipient computers are connected to a data network.Typically, the message is temporarily stored in a server of the datanetwork. The recipient computers (users) can retrieve the storedmessages at their convenience.

Many users find that sending e-mails is more convenient than sendingletters. The user can type a few lines on a computer, enter a simplee-mail address, press a button, and the message is sent. There is noneed to print out the message, put it in an envelope, write a longaddress, and deliver the letter to a mail-box. This is especiallyimportant when the user is traveling because he/she may not have accessto printers, envelopes, stamps, and mail-boxes. Because of theconvenience, people tend to write a lot of e-mails, which promotecommunication. The increased communication improves efficiency, whichtends to have a positive effect on profitability of a company.

Although many companies recognize the benefits of e-mails, some of themhave installed e-mail systems only recently. This is because e-mailsystems in the past were proprietary systems. Messages can only bedelivered in such systems if the senders and recipients use the sameproprietary system. The proprietary nature of these e-mail systems meansthat each system can only be accessed by persons associated with thesame organization (such as a company or an on-line service provider). Itis very difficult to send messages to an intended recipient outside ofthe system. Thus, a message can only reach a relatively small number ofcomputers (i.e., users). Unless the company has many employees, thecosts of setting up an e-mail system may be much higher than theanticipated benefits.

More recently, many companies and homes have been connected to theInternet, which is a world-wide open data network connecting tens ofmillions of computers. One of the reasons for the Internet's popularityis that the cost of accessing the Internet is very low. Another reasonis that the Internet offers many resources in addition to e-mails. Eachuser of the Internet is assigned an e-mail address that is recognizablearound the world. A computer connected to the Internet can send e-mailsto any one of these e-mail addresses. As a result, it is possible tocommunicate electronically with many people at any time.

As a result of the popularity and convenience of e-mails, many companiesallow their customers to send comments and request information andservices using e-mails. Typically, these companies set up one or morespecific e-mail addresses for these purposes. These mails arc typicallyanswered on a first come first serve basis.

It has been found that many of these mails are lost or unanswered. Thereare many reasons for this problem. One reason is that the person who issupposed to process an e-mail may not be familiar with the subjectmatter of the e-mail. Thus, this e-mail is left unanswered. One solutionis for the person to forward the e-mail to another person who may bemore familiar with the subject matter. This increases data traffic andwork-load for everyone. Further, there is no guarantee that the intendedrecipient is available to reply to the e-mail. Consequently, there is aneed to have a more efficient system to handle this problem.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention involves a system for routing an e-mail to one ofa plurality of support persons in a processing center. Each supportperson has a skill set that is suitable for responding to a certain typeof e-mails. Thus, it is more efficient to route the e-mail to anavailable person who is best qualified to answer the mail. The systemcomprises an e-mail server for receiving the e-mail from a sender, aninformation extractor for extracting relevant information from thee-mail, and a router for routing the e-mail. In one embodiment of theinvention, the system contains a database for storing informationrelated to all persons who can answer e-mails. The system also comprisesa statistic server (also called stat-server) for storing the history ofall activities in the system. The router can make routing decisionsbased on the information stored in the database and the stat-server.

These and other features of the present invention are disclosed in thefollowing description of the invention together with the accompanyingdrawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an e-mail processing center of thepresent invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of an e-mail to CTI server adapter used in thee-mail processing center of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a flow chart showing operation of the server adapter used inthe e-mail processing center of FIG. 1.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The present invention comprises a novel routing system for electronicmails and related methods. The following description is presented toenable any person skilled in the art to make and use the invention.Description of specific applications is provided only as examples.Various modifications to the preferred embodiments will be readilyapparent to those skilled in the art, and the general principles definedherein may be applied to other embodiments and applications withoutdeparting from the spirit and scope of the invention. Thus, the presentinvention is not intended to be limited to the embodiments shown, but isto be accorded the widest scope consistent with the principles andfeatures disclosed herein.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an e-mail processing center 100 of thepresent invention. Processing center 100 contains an e-mail server 102which is connected to a data network 104. Data network 104 could be alocal area network or a wide-area network (such as the Internet or anintranet). Other data processing devices, such as computers 106 and 108,are also connected to data network 104. All the data processing devicescan send e-mails to each other. As a result, some of the e-mails aresent to e-mail server 102.

As an example, it is assumed that one of the addresses associated withe-mail server 102 is "support@abc-company.com". This is an address forcustomers of a company named "ABC" to send in questions regardingproducts and services provided by the company. It is anticipated thatthe subject matter of the e-mails are diverse and the number of mails islarge. For example, the e-mails may relate to all aspects of theproducts and services offered by ABC. Some of the e-mails may containtechnical questions of a product. Other e-mails may report a bug insoftware sold by ABC. A few e-mails may contain suggestions on improvingthe products and services. If support persons of ABC are assigned toanswer some of the e-mails on a first come first served basis, it wouldbe very difficult for them to do so because it is almost impossible fora single person to know everything about ABC.

One aspect of the present invention is a system for automaticallyrouting the e-mails to the most qualified and available support persons.For example, a support person may be an expert in one product of ABC.All e-mails related to this product will be routed to this personautomatically. Further, the system can distribute the load so that everysupport person receives approximately the same number of e-mails. As aresult, the problems of the prior art systems can be solved.

Note that the criteria for determining whether a support person isavailable is not limited to e-mail activities. This is because the samesupport person may provide telephone and facsimile support to customerinquiries. Thus, the availability of a support person may involve acombination of activities involving telephone, facsimile, e-mail, dataprocessing, etc.

Processing center 100 contains a server 112 that records all activity inthe center. For example, it contains records of who are present in thecenter at a particular time and are available for service, as well asrecords of all e-mails that are pending and have been processed bycenter 100. Server 112 is called herein the "stat-server." It should benoted that many types of information can be recorded, and the choice ofinformation is determined on a case-by-cased basis.

Processing center 100 also contains a database 114 that containsdetailed information on each support person, products, and customers.Information of support persons includes their skill set (e.g., productexpertise, written language ability) and prior relationship withcustomers. Information on customers (based on the incoming e-mailaddress) includes the content of their previous e-mails, the productsthey bought, their physical addresses (obtained from productregistration information), etc.

Processing center 100 also contains a router 116. This router selectsthe most qualified and available support person to respond to aparticular e-mail based on one or more algorithms (or scripts). Variousfactors in a routing strategy will be described below.

In one embodiment of the present invention, database 114, router 116 andstat-server 112 could be a database, router and stat-server commonlyused in telephony call centers. The advantage of this embodiment is thatdatabase, router and stat-server software for telephony applications arewell developed and widely available. The use of existing software (orslightly modified versions) could speed up product development time. Intelephony applications, a server is used to provide computer telephonyintegration (CTI) by controlling an automatic call distributor (atelephony hardware device for controlling telephone communicationbetween the public telephone networks and telephones inside a callcenter) and communicating with a database, router and stat-server. Thisserver is called herein the CTI-server. One of the functions of the CTIserver is allowing automatic call distributors of different vendors tobe used with the same database, router and stat-server.

In this embodiment, a CTI-server 130 and an e-mail-to-CTI-server adapter110 is preferably included. As explained above, CTI-server 130 providesa common interface for communicating with database 114, router 116 andstat-server 112 via a digital communication network 128. Because thesesoftware products are based on telephony applications, some of theattributes used therein may not be exactly the same as that used ine-mail applications. For example, the attribute of "telephone number" intelephony applications is not used in e-mail applications. Similarly,the e-mail attribute of "sender's e-mail address" may not berecognizable in telephony applications. These two attributes havesimilar characteristics, and can be used interchangeably provided thatthey are formatted and used properly. One of the functions of adapter110 is to provide conversion between e-mail attributes and telephonyattributes.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of e-mail-to-CTI-server adapter 110. Itincludes an e-mail interface 202 for sending data to and receiving datafrom e-mail server 102. Adapter 110 also includes an informationextractor 204 for extracting relevant information from e-mails.Extractor 204 contains a parser 206 for parsing the content of thee-mails obtained from e-mail server 102. Extractor 204 also contains astorage device for storing an algorithm 208 which directs parser 206 toextract appropriate information from the content of the e-mails inaccordance with predetermined criteria. The extraction algorithm inextractor 204 is changeable because the coding in algorithm 208 could bechanged. Examples of relevant information are:

(a) Addresses: Typically, an e-mail has a portion that contains theaddresses of the sender and recipient. Extractor 204 directs parser 206to extract these e-mail addresses.

(b) Time Stamp: Some e-mail contains the date and time an e-mail issent. Extractor 204 could direct parser 206 to extract this information.This information may be more accurate than the time e-mail server 102receives the e-mail because some e-mails may be delayed for more than aday due to network problems.

(c) Keyword: The Extractor may direct the parser to conduct a keywordsearch on the content of the e-mails. Examples of keywords are name ofrelevant products and services provided by the company., special wordssuch as "bugs," "virus", "crash" (for software products), "overheat" and"electric shock" (for hardware products), and words of urgent nature(such as "urgent", "ASAP", and "fast").

Adapter 110 contains a formatter 210 for formatting the relevantinformation into attributes that can be understood by CTI-server 130. Asan example, the sender's e-mail address could be formatted as a caller'stelephone number (which is a telephony attribute). The formattedattribute is sent to a data communication interface 212 whichcommunicates the attributes to CTI server 130 via communication network128.

Adapter 110 also contains a deformatter 214 that accepts data andcommands from CTI-server 130 and translate them to a form understood bye-mail server 102. As explained below, router 116 may send (viaCTI-server 130) commands to e-mail server 102. Returning now to router116, some examples of support person selection criteria are:

(a) the product expertise of the support person;

(b) language ability of the support person,

(c) activities the support person (e.g., how many e-malls have thisperson processed and how many are pending);

(d) work load of other support persons in the center (for load balanceamong various support persons);

(e) the language of the incoming e-mail;

(f) the subject matter of the incoming e-mail;

(g) information about the sender;

(h) overall activities of the center (e.g. whether the support personsneed to process jobs other than e-mails); and

(i) the urgency of the matter.

Processing center 100 contains a number of computer terminals, such ascomputers 122 and 124, managed by support persons. When a support personstarts 15 to work, he/she logs in so that stat-server 112 knows who isworking in center 100 and how to reach the support person. Router 116obtains information to make selection decisions from stat-server 112 anddatabase 114. Once a decision is made, router 116 sends a command toe-mail server 102 to route the e-mail to the selected computer terminal.The support person responds to the e-mail and sends the reply to e-mailserver 102, which delivers the reply to the sender via data network 104.

A flow chart 150 showing the operation of e-mail processing center 100is shown in FIG. 3. In step 152, e-mail server 102 receives an e-mail.The e-mail is forwarded to e-mail-to-CTI-server adapter 110. In step154, adapter 110 extracts e-mail attributes in accordance withpre-configured rules (embodied in extraction algorithm 208). It alsosends status information and formulates requests to CTI server 130 usingappropriate extracted attributes. In step 156, CTI-server 130 forwardsthe request and status information to router 116 and stat-server 112. Instep 158, router 116 retrieves information from stat-server 112 anddatabase 114 so as to make routing decision. In step 160, router 116instructs e-mail server 102 to route the e-mail to the computer terminalused by a selected support person, such as computer 122. Because theinstructions from router 116 may be coded in telephony-related commands,these instructions may need to pass through CTI-router 130, deformatter210 and e-mail interface 202. Upon receiving the e-mail, the supportperson processes the e-mail using computer 122. If there is a need tosend a reply, the support person writes the reply (step 162), anddirects e-mail server 102 to deliver the reply to a recipient connectedto data network 104 (step 164).

In addition to providing basic routing function, router 116 may alsohave a strategy to handle exception situations. For example, if anincoming mail is not answered by the selected support person within apredetermined time interval (e.g., three days), the mail is re-routed toanother qualified and available support person. This strategy preventsmails from being dropped. As another example, there may be times whenthe number of incoming mails exceeds the available resource to answerthese mails (i.e., overflow). Router 116 could store these mails in aqueue and direct e-mail server 102 to alert senders that it may take alittle longer to receive a reply. It should be noted that if router 116,stat-server 112 and database 114 are designed strictly for e-mailapplications, there is no need to have CTI server 130, formatter 210 anddeformatter 214. In this case, router 116, stat-server 112 and database114 can communicate with e-mail server 102 and information extractor 204directly.

The invention has been described with reference to a specific exemplaryembodiment thereof. Various modification and changes may be madethereunto without departing from the broad spirit and scope of theinvention. The specification and drawings are, accordingly, to beregarded in an illustrative rather than a restrictive sense; theinvention is limited only by the provided claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A system for receiving and routing e-mails andtelephony calls in a multimedia call center having a Computer TelephonyIntegration (CTI) enhanced data network within the call center, thesystem for routing both e-mails and telephony calls comprising;aplurality of computers connected on the data network and managed bysupport persons; an e-mail server connected on the data network; anadapter for performing conversion between e-mail attributes andtelephony attributes, the adapter connected to the data network and thee-mail server; a Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) server connectedon the data network; and a telephony router connected to the datanetwork; characterized in that the adapter converts data between e-mailattributes and telephony attributes, and the CTI server negotiates withthe router over the data network to determine a destination for thee-mail, and directs the e-mail server to forward the e-mail to one ofsaid support persons based on the negotiation.
 2. The system of claim 1also comprising a stat-server connected to the data network, whereinstat-server records all of the activity information of the call center,and the router uses the information, at least partially, in the saidnegotiation with the CTI-server to determine a destination for thee-mail.
 3. The system of claim 2 wherein routing of e-mails to selectedsupport persons is load-balanced based on recorded activity stored insaid stat-server of both e-mail and telephony traffic.
 4. The System ofclaim 1 also comprising a database connected to the data network storinginformation regarding availability of said support persons, wherein therouter uses the information, at least partially, in the said negotiationwith the CTI-server to determine a destination for the e-mail.
 5. Thesystem of claim 4 wherein said database further stores information onsenders of e-mails, and routing performed by said router further usessaid stored information on senders of e-mails in selecting supportpersons to receive said e-mails.
 6. The system of claim 4 wherein saiddatabase stores information about prior relationships of support personsand e-mail senders, and said router uses said relationship informationin routing decisions.
 7. The system of claim 1 wherein a time limit forresponse to e-mails by said support persons is set, and wherein e-mailsnot answered within said time limit are rerouted to other supportpersons.
 8. The system of claim 1 wherein an overload threshold is setfor number of e-mails to be routed, and senders of e-mails are notifiedof a possible delay when the threshold is exceeded.
 9. The system ofclaim 1 wherein the support persons, after receiving the routed e-mail,reply directly to the sender of the e-mail, via the e-mail server, on afirst come first serve basis.
 10. A method for receiving and routinge-mails in a multimedia call center routing both e-mails and telephonycalls having a Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) enhanced datanetwork within the call center, the method for routing e-mailscomprising steps of;(a) converting e-mail attributes to telephonyattributes of an e-mail received at the call center via an adapterconnected to a data network, (b) negotiating a destination for thee-mail between a Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) server, and atelephony router, both being connected to the data network, (c)instructing an e-mail server to forward said e-mail to one of aplurality of computer terminals connected to the data network, at leastpartially based on the negotiation in step (b).